Implementation and evaluation of communication system for autonomous offshore vehicles

Abstract

In the past few years, the use of smart devices and the amount of data traffic have been increasing significantly as more and more practical applications using wireless networks were being developed. Hence, machine-type communication (MTC) becomes an important use case for current and future wireless technologies. It covers a wide range of usage areas, for example, industrial automation, smart agriculture, and personal healthcare. This thesis focuses on the application of MTC for autonomous robotics, especially in maritime environments. To minimize the human's interaction on operation, the unmanned offshore system requires an inter-connectivity among the vehicles to exchange telemetry messages, sensor data and to stream surveillance video to a ground station. It leads to a demand for a wireless connection, which works without session interruptions, and provides high data rate, and covers a wide range. Hence, this thesis aims to develop a high-speed long-range communication solution for autonomous maritime operations. To achieve that purpose, a system of directional radio interfaces utilizing IEEE 802.11 Wi-Fi is designed and implemented on three core components of the offshore system: ground control, Unmanned Surface Vehicle, and Unmanned Aerial Vehicle. Each subsystem incorporates mechanical structures and motors, networking devices, and electrical components to form a functional communication solution. In addition, a beam-steering algorithm is developed and implemented for directional radio interfaces. Then, the system is tested in practice and the performance is evaluated in terms of throughput and received signal strength. Moreover, the results are compared with reference theoretical radio propagation models. Here, the details of the system implementation, appropriate tests, and analysis are summarized, evaluated, and discussed.